Columns

Israel’s dirty and devastating attack on Gaza in an attempt to wipe out much of its enemy Hamas and, in the process, killing thousands of Palestinian civilian men, women and children, is surely one of the dirtiest of the Israeli-Arab conflicts since they began at the butt end of 1940s.

While regional and international efforts continued to end this humanitarian disaster Sri Lanka’s emerging new ‘War Lords’ launched their own ground offensive exactly one week ago against the island’s own ‘drug lords’ several operating from abroad, mainly Dubai, and their distribution networks at home and the criminal ‘underworld’ locally known as the pathalayas.

The day before temporary ‘Field Marshal’ Tiran Alles ordered his troops into battle with his battle commander, the acting IGP Deshabandu Tennekoon (temporary or otherwise), and other stormtroopers by his side, Supremo Alles read the riot act to the multitude.

Alas, Alles lacked the oratorical skills of a Mark Antony or even an Anura Kumara Dissanayake. His listless address intended to stir the public and police into battle was more likely to have stirred them from their sleep.

Nevertheless, he told the people to warn any kudu karayas and pathalayas they know, to surrender so they may find salvation in a rehabilitation camp enjoying perhaps two meals a day, though there cannot be any guarantee about the subsequent condition of their innards.

That certainly would be more than what they would get at home from next month when the Ranil Wickremesinghe administration tells an increasingly hungry population what is VAT tainted and what is not, thanks to the IMF also known in some cynical circles as an Internationally Miserable Failure.

Had an alert Supreme Court not struck down chunks of the Rehabilitation Bill, jackboots would leave their marks all over the place and lots of Aragalites and “extremist” groups would have also found free lodgings at the same camps where post-offensive round-ups last week have now found accommodation for those being prepared for rehabilitation with lessons in the rule of law and how uncivilised it is to torture persons who are only suspects.

And if the Kudu-Ks and P-thalayas take on the Tiran Tigers ( not at a Sri Lanka Cricket IPL naturally) it will not be “alles gute”- as my one time German colleagues in divided Berlin would say–for the KKs, that is.
Well, they are likely to end up very D.E.A.D. One could, of course, have spelt it out in more civilised words such as “Encounter killings”. But if one was itching to get rid of these hoodlums and other dregs of society and clean up the place, why waste time with pleasantries when normal police lingo would serve the purpose better.
Whether his pre-offensive threats and admonitions were intended to frighten the daylights out of the dear departed Al Capone’s descendants and Harak Kata’s progeny, is not known.

But when he launches his “Operation Yukthiya” joining hands with an acting police chief who probably finds it difficult to grasp the meaning of “Yukithiya”, it sure sounds like a huge joke perpetrated on the people of Sri Lanka who have suffered enough from incompetents of highly dubious backgrounds.
If the name for the operation “Yukthiya” (justice) was created by persons who had a basic understanding of what it meant, it could have won some public acceptance. After all, doing justice to the kudu peddlers and hoodlums is not a bad idea at all.

Yet it was not many days back that the Supreme Court castigated the acting IGP Deshabandu Tennekoon and a few other police officers for multiple violations of the country’s constitution and particularly human rights such as torture which Sri Lanka had signed to observe, respect and honour under international conventions and laws.
The Supreme Court had asked the National Police Commission to take disciplinary action against him and ordered that Tennekoon pay the plaintiff a sum of Rs 200,000 from his personal funds for violating the fundamental rights of the tortured suspect.
This case, which opened Tennekoon to more public exposure, is not the only litigation facing him as the acting IGP struggles desperately to clear a widely tarnished image.

(Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who was Assistant Editor of the Hong Kong Standard and worked for Gemini News Service in London. Later he was Deputy Chief-of-Mission in Bangkok and Deputy High Commissioner in London.)